Stuff You Should Know - Myths and Truths About Tornadoes

Episode Date: April 25, 2016

Tornadoes can make mincemeat out of houses, people, cars, you name it. So do you know what to do - and what not to do - when there's one headed your way? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, reporting from the eye of the tornado, which is why it's quiet and calm. Oh, wait, that's a hurricane. And there's Charles Overtake Bryant and Jerry's over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know. Howdy, sir.

How are you? I'm good. I should say right off the bat that my wife, Emily, is kind of obsessed with tornadoes. Oh, yeah. From her childhood growing up in Ohio. Yep, same here. Which, we'll talk about tornado alley,

but some people put parts of Ohio in tornado alley. Yeah. Some people don't. My family did. Yeah, sure. Was it like a thing growing up? Oh, yeah. You just grew here at the end of tornado alley. Right.

I mean, you'd see them. So the tornado might come knocking, and here's what we'll do. Right. Son. Well, yeah, and we did it plenty of times. Go down in the basement. For practice or because the tornado is coming?

No, no, no, because they're tornadoes. All right. Yeah, sure. No, Ohio is definitely at the end of tornado alley. I know if you look at the map, it doesn't look like most of it is. Well, it depends on what map. Yeah.

If you look at the Clark family map, and apparently the Senebogan family map. Yeah. It's on tornado alley. Yeah, so she's still obsessed with tornadoes and the movie twister, every time it's on, she'll watch whatever part of it is on. It's a good one.

I think also, you could make the argument that twister kind of cinematizes tornadoes. You think? Maybe. It's a little. Although there are some parts where it's like, you should not be telling people to do this, like outrunning a tornado.

Yeah. That's a good thing to not do as a matter of fact. Well, we saw, I watched, there was some video going around the other day of a lady who survived a tornado that went through, I think she was a FedEx driver. At a convenience store, and it's just like this camera footage, and she kind of ducks

behind a soda machine, and you just see it go through and just wreck everything, and then she walks out. And I told Emily, I was like, this is your worst nightmare. And she said, yes, I said, but it's also your deepest desire. Oh, it's like that for her, huh? I think so. She said, if I know I could survive it,

she went, I think it might be my deepest desire. To like get through a tornado going right over me. Yeah. So that's her obsession runs deep. So you've seen that footage of those people under an overpass where the video, like the tornado appears, just go right over the overpass, or the underpass. What's the difference?

I think if you're going over the road below, you're on the overpass. If you're underneath the overpass, you're in the underpass. OK. I think. All right. Yeah. I'm sure some highway peddots will.

Civil engineer? Yeah. They'll write in. So Chuck, there are plenty of things that Emily should do and shouldn't do if she's going to survive that tornado that she secretly really wants to experience. Right?

And there's a lot of myths associated with tornadoes. Like I grew up, you didn't grow up with tornadoes? Well, I mean, Georgia has tornadoes here and there. Here or there? Yeah, like it seems like I've seen them in the North Georgia mountains before. Like, I remember one time when I went to drive to go camping, there had been a recent tornado, and there were some houses

that were just toothpicks. Oh, yeah. Yes, as a matter of fact, I think there was a bad one in Ringgold, you remember, which is a little north of here. And you and I were driving through, and it was like pine. You could see where it crossed the highway, because there was this swath of pine trees, like you said.

They'd just been crushed like toothpicks on one side, and then on the other side. But then not further up and not further south. It was pretty neat, but it was also like, oh yeah, like a bunch of people died here a month ago. It is definitely weird when you see like a house will be splintered and the next door neighbors is fine. Yes.

It's just so creepy. It is very random. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty creepy. Were you and Yumi on your way to Dollywood by any chance? That's entirely possible. I just figured, anytime you get in a car and head north, you're probably going to Dollywood.

Right, pretty much. Point of north, you and me. OK, so we're talking tornadoes, and there's tons of myths and legends associated with them. Some of them even discussed and put out there by scientists, as we'll see. But one of the big ones, it's a pretty sad one, is the idea that tornadoes seek out mobile home parks,

trailer parks. Yeah, that's sort of the old joke, you know? It is. And it's a pretty grim joke. Sure. But the weird thing is, is it appears to be true that trailer parks are likelier to be hit by tornadoes than immobile homes.

Homes on foundations, neighborhoods, subdivisions, that kind of thing. Well, I think it's probably correct to say it might appear that way for several reasons. Go ahead. Yeah? Well, yeah. Well, one reason is that there's clearly a media bias

when it comes to showing tornado footage, because they tend to show the most damage on the 6 o'clock news. That is absolutely true. So mobile home is way more likely to be completely destroyed than like a concrete house, let's say. And the reason is why. They're pretty obvious, but they're worth mentioning.

Mobile home is made out of much more lightweight material than immobile home. Is that what you would call it? I would say a home with a permanent foundation. OK, nice. And that leads us to number two. Number two is that a mobile home is, by definition, usually not anchored to the ground through a foundation

like a permanent structure. It's like a home, all right? And so you put those two things together. When a tornado comes through, it creates horrible devastation, not just to the mobile homes, but to the people inside. And you're much more likely to die in a tornado if you live in a mobile home than in a permanent structure.

Yeah, it says here that a larger building could possibly withstand up to 100 miles an hour for wind, whereas 55 miles an hour could be really devastating in a mobile home. Yeah, and so people in mobile homes in the United States are 10 to 20 times likelier to be killed in a tornado than someone who lives in a permanent foundation home. Yeah, and I said concrete house earlier. I didn't mean brick house.

I meant concrete house. Yeah, because I have one in my neighborhood. Oh, sure. Like a cinder block house? Yeah. It's a concrete house. Sure, but a brick house, too, that counts. Those concrete houses are built like a brick house.

The other thing that we found out is Purdue University at one point did a little research and found out that tornadoes, you're more than likely to find a tornado, what they call a transition zone, where you may be transitioned from a more dense city area to a more rural area, where the land changes. Yeah, and they Purdue studied tornadoes in Indiana specifically from 1950 to 2012 and found

that they are much likelier to touch down in these transition zones. But that doesn't explain why. They just were able to say, yes, this happens more frequently. And it just so happens that these are places where mobile home parks and trailer parks are likelier to be. Yeah, they're usually not like in the middle of a city.

So they were saying that it is actually likelier for a mobile home to be hit more by a tornado, possibly. Because it's right there in the spot where they would hit. But again, we don't know why. I have a pet theory here. Oh boy, I love these. I think that we don't, well, it's

clear we don't understand tornadoes yet very well enough. And that's just us, scientists too. And I think one of the things that we're going to learn about tornadoes as we understand them more is that they're guided or attracted to static electricity. Mobile homes tend to be made out of more metal than brick or wood homes or concrete homes. And so we generate more static electricity

and could possibly serve as kind of almost a beacon to a tornado that would attract it. That's my guess. And then do you also remember back in, I don't remember when it was, and I couldn't find it on the web, but either in Viana or Cairo, which if you live outside of Georgia, it's Vienna or Cairo, there was a mobile home factory that got hit by a tornado.

I think I do remember that. You remember, it made pretty big news because everybody was like on the irony. The old joke. So that's my pet theory, static electricity off of mobile homes attracts tornadoes. Did you come up with that all on your lonesome? Oh, yeah, I used my noggin.

Pretty good. Thanks, man. Should we move on to the underpass, overpass, quandary? Yeah. You will hear, you probably have heard, because the rationale used to be, hey, if you're out on the highway, get out of your car and run under that overpass or underpass and huddle.

Makes total sense. Or drive your car under there and sit there. Yeah, and drive your car under and then run up to the part where the overpass meets the underpass and just wedge yourself in as much as you can. Safest place ever. Where skateboard or spray paint. Exactly.

Yeah, and smoke marijuana for the first time. It makes total sense. Those are extraordinarily sturdy concrete structures. And anybody who knows anything about tornadoes knows that you want to be in a concrete structure. But the caveat is that you want that thing to be an enclosed concrete structure, either in some sort of concrete walls with a concrete roof

or underground or something like that. And an overpass or underpass is actually a tornado frenzy whipping machine. It actually will do the opposite. It's one of the worst places you can go. Yeah, it creates what they call a wind tunnel effect. So the wind in the underpass is stronger than the wind on the ground or above it.

Yeah, it funnels the wind through and increases velocity. So the wind is actually faster in the overpass. And with that wind, as you know, comes all kinds of debris that will impale your body without even feeling bad about it. Yeah, it gets whipped up by that wind tunnel. And then when the tornado passes, that debris that's in the air is going to suddenly shift and come back for a second glancing blow if you're lucky.

Yeah, I was just thinking when you said to hide all the way up at the very tip top, that if the tornado was going parallel and literally was as if it was going down the highway above you, that maybe there is something to that. But tornadoes are so wide, it's not like it's as wide as that street. Well, yeah, and this article also

makes the point that just the part of the funnel that touches the ground is not the only place where there's winds. There's high winds all around the tornado as well. You just don't necessarily see them. And that video that we talked about, the very famous video of the people taking shelter underneath an overpass and filming it as the tornado goes by overhead,

apparently they were being subjected to something called an inflow jet, a surface inflow jet, which was wind whipping off the ground toward the tornado. So they weren't actually in the path of the tornado. No, the tornado was pretty close, like 30, 40 feet over. And to them, they were like, it was the tornado, but it actually wasn't. Had it been the tornado, they may not have survived.

And they were actually very lucky to have survived anyway. But a lot of people point to that, and they're like, yeah, that's exactly what you should do, see? And that's a total anomaly that those people survived. Right, you can't take one video and say, this is the standard. Exactly. These people lived. Even though it's amazing.

Yeah, although they did say the FedEx driver was super smart for wedging herself between two soda machines. Oh, yeah. Although she could have been squashed by those two. I guess so. Oh, it worked out for her. Let's just say that.

There's one other problem with taking shelter under an overpass too, is when you park your car around there, it's going to get kicked up by the tornado and possibly land on its side in the middle of the road. So that when the tornado passes, and the paramedics need to get through there to get to rescue people, they're going to have a hard time with your car on its side in the middle of the road, because you left it right

in the path of the tornado. Yeah, plus there's a problem with people. Well, we'll get to trying to outrun a tornado here in a minute. All right. Should we take a break? Let's take a break. All right.

Let's take a break. Let's take a break. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling

of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when

questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy, teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Josh. There's another old thing that you've probably heard, growing up in Toledo, which is, if you see a tornado, or you know a tornado is coming, open up your windows

so it can just pass on through. Makes total sense. Yeah, not necessarily pass through, but like, was it depressurized the home, maybe? Yeah, so a tornado is driven by low-pressure winds, right? Yeah. Or a low-pressure front. And the idea was that if the pressure was higher in your house

than the tornado outside, your house would explode. Right. And it was actually, this is what scientists told people to do for many years. Yeah. They said, go open your windows. I remember that. I don't remember us ever opening our windows,

but I remember it was like a should you, shouldn't you kind of thing. Yeah. And the problem is, is that ways tear, like a tremendous amount of time. Sure, running around the house trying to open windows. Right, when you need to be taking shelter somewhere. And then secondly, it does absolutely nothing,

as a matter of fact. It can have even different effects than if you left the window closed. Yeah, I wonder if that started because they didn't know much about it, and they would say, well, that house looks like it exploded. Yeah. Because they do look like it, they exploded.

Yeah. But they didn't. Have you ever seen one up close? What, the wreckage? Yeah. Yeah. Well, just driving by it, like. No, like a house.

Yeah, yeah, like on the road, and then the house was beside the road. Got you. But I didn't, like, walk through it. Yumi was telling me once about when she was a kid down south, that there was a neighborhood that just got, just leveled. Yeah. And she was actually talking about how just insane it

is when you're seeing a house that's standing, but everything around it's, like, totally destroyed. Yeah. But she was like, this is, like, it was unnerving. Oh, sure. The destruction, like, seeing houses like that. Because, you know, they're supposed to be solid and safe. Yeah.

They're not supposed to look like they exploded or anything like that. Although, if you've ever done house construction and stuff like that, I remember, I don't know, I had this idea in my head that, I don't think I knew how houses were built. Right. And then once I sort of did a little bit,

I was like, man, this is just a bunch of wood. Exactly. And drywall. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So, I mean, it makes sense, but it is very distressing to see that turned into toothpicks.

Right. So if you did, go to the trouble of opening all of the windows in your house, right? Now, tornado came through, and it didn't actually level your house, because that's the other thing with opening the windows. The tornado could care less about the lower high pressure. Right.

It's just going to level your house if it wants to, if it gets in the way. Sure. But if it did just pass by enough that it didn't level your house and the windows were open, it could conceivably blow the roof off the sucker. Yeah. Because those windows are open.

Right. Yeah. Apparently, the tornado actually raises the pressure in the house upward somehow, and then gusts can lift the roof right off. And they did this, they figured this out by doing tests. And I looked everywhere to find out who conducted this test and how they did it.

Couldn't find anything. Is it bunk? That thing? Yeah. Maybe. I was always just wondering, though, when they were like, we performed tests. Right.

Trust me. How do you blow the roof off of a house in a test? Yeah, or simulate a tornado. Right. Yeah. You could on a smaller scale, but does it graduate upward? Yeah, I don't know. Tell Stinky to me.

I'm off today. No, you're not. I feel off. Oh, you're right on. I gave blood for the first time on Sunday. Oh, I thought you about to say it like an hour ago. You saw it? That's the first time you've ever given blood in your life?

Yeah. Really? Yeah. I feel like, man, I waited way too long. You're going to start giving blood too much. Probably. You're going to be like, take my platelets, take up. I'll be like Peggy Hill.

What happened to her? Oh, she got into a blood-donating contest with her next door neighbor, Min, to basically to see who was the most generous. That's pretty funny. And she really went overboard. Did you eat some nutter butters and have some juice? Nutter butters and little Welch's gummies.

Yeah. See, I used to not give as blood as much because I was severely needle phobic. But needles have gotten so much smaller now, A. And if you get someone who knows how to do it properly, it's really not that bad. Oh, no, it wasn't bad at all. I'm like, I really am ashamed that I waited this long

in my life. For years, years, honestly, years, I was under the impression that you couldn't give blood if you had a tattoo. Oh, yeah, that old thing. Yeah. And then I met you, Min, and she's like, why don't you donate blood?

Yeah, she's like, what's your problem? Right. And I told her, and she's like, nope, that's not true at all. Right. And then it took me three, four years, five years later. Six years later, I was like, all right, let's do it. Well, you can make up for it now. And hey, people out there, you might have some Josh Clark

blood pumping through your body soon. How about that? Pretty neat. Pretty neat. What were you? I can't remember your blood type, but it was you and Jerry were the same, right? A positive, B.

So am I. Yeah. We had the same type. So A positive. I love that Jerry speaks especially quietly. Can you make sure you edit yourself out? OK. Yeah, because you were both A positive.

I remember that, because you made the joke. I had the same. That you're A positive person or something like that. Yeah. It's a good way to remember it. Jerry would have known that we had the same blood type as she came to our live show. Jerry could get some Josh blood.

Do you know how upsetting that would be for you? What if one of you had to rely on the other to live? Yeah, if Jerry cut herself and got some blood and it turned out to be mine. Yeah, if she cut herself. Should we move to the bathtub, sir? Let's. The old, I'm going to call it an old wives tale,

that go get in the bathtub, because that's a really safe place in your home to withstand the tornado, because bathtubs are strong and thick. They're not, though. You were talking about houses being made of wood and drywall. A bathtub's just like a fiberglass shell, around a two by four frame. That's your bathtub.

Depends on what kind of bathtub you got. If you have an old cloth-footed iron tub. That's what I got. I could withstand anything in that thing. OK, so most people don't have that. They have, and you think you're getting in a bathtub. You're like, oh, this thing's pretty sturdy. But really, if you could pick it up,

it's just a fiberglass around two by fours. Yeah. You're like, I've kicked a hole in five bathtubs. It's easy. I'm on at least five. So the logic is that it's heavy and sturdy. And I think a lot of this logic came out from the day when bathtubs were sturdier than they are now.

I agree with you. But either way, it's only a good idea if that bathtub happens to be in a safe part of your home. Precisely, right? So a safe part of your home is a room with no exterior-facing walls, no exterior-facing windows, obviously. And if your bathtub is in a bathroom with an exterior-facing

wall and an exterior-facing window, is that superfluous? Do I need to say that? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Just do not get in your bathtub. Because that wall in that room is very likely to be ripped apart by a tornado, even if the rest of the house isn't.

So you want to go as much into the center of your house as possible, as windowless a room as possible. Say like a closet inside your house, surrounded by as many rooms as possible. Yeah, so if you have a bathtub and a kill dungeon. Go to the kill dungeon. Then you're set. Yeah.

Even if you don't have a bathtub in there. If you have a cloth at tub and a kill dungeon, then you're golden. Yeah, you could just go ahead and take a bath. So Chuck, another legend about tornadoes seems to be that they avoid cities. Sure seems that way. Yeah, but it's kind of like the same thing

as the mobile home thing, if my theory is incorrect, where it just seems that way. The reason why is because there's way more rural area in the United States than there is city. Even though most people live in cities, they're packed in there, which is why we're all stressed out. That's right. 80% of the population in the US lives in urban centers.

But it happens, Oklahoma City, in what year was this? 2013? Well, they had one in 1999 and one in 2013. They were huge. Right, an EF5. And that is based on the Fujita tornado scale. Look at this one we did a show on tornadoes. I specifically remember saying that tornadoes form

because there's a horizontal column of swirling air that eventually moves down and becomes vertical. And that's your tornado. Well, we did a very, in the early days of the five minute episodes, we did one about being in the eye of the tornado. That was not it. Oh, one? You know what it might have been?

Can it really rain frogs? Oh, maybe. Or did we talk about water spots separately, or was that the same episode? I don't know. That was the one where you predicted Sharknado. Oh, yeah, which I got nothing for. So Oklahoma City in 1999 was an EF5,

which is the strongest possible tornado on the tornado scale. I was looking into the Fujita scale. So apparently, a theater of Fujita made up the scale out of a whole cloth, basically. Really? Without doing real investigation into it. He just said, I'm Teddy Fujita. Yeah, what I say goes with tornadoes.

But he said, we'll say an F5 is like this. But he didn't actually go out and compare the wind speeds to the level of destruction. He didn't do that legwork. Who is he, and why did we listen to him? Apparently, everybody liked the name of his scale because they went out and adjusted it. So it's been since adjusted to where it now actually reflects

reality a lot better. Interesting. But an F5, like you said, is as bad as it gets. And it can just keep getting worse and worse. There's no F6 or F7 or anything like that. So like an F5 plus? Even the minimum F5, though, is mind boggling in its destruction.

So that went through Oklahoma City in 1999, which is clearly a big-ish city. Did $1 billion worth of damage and killed 36 people. So yeah, that's pretty devastating for a city. And then in 2013, like you said, another one hit. 25 people were killed, and that was both in the city and in the suburbs outside the city. But we had one in Atlanta in 2008.

I remember where I was because it was the day before my birthday. Oh yeah, it was March 14. It was the Ides of March, huh? Yeah. Or the day before the Ides of March. I was in Kirkwood having pizza with Emily and Justin and Emily's sister, Sarah. And it was like a bad storm, clearly.

But Emily said, oh my god, it's raining sideways. And we looked out the window. And the rain was blowing sideways. The wind was blowing so hard. And we were just like, man, that's crazy. Let's get another beer. And I guess if we were in Kirkwood, Cabbage Town is less than three miles away.

That's where it hit was Cabbage Town. Well, yeah, it was one of the places it hit in the cotton mill lofts. So less than a few miles away, tornadoes were wrecking the city. And we were just in there drinking and eating pizza. And we didn't know until the next day. How many miles away? I mean, it had to be, what, a couple of miles.

Yeah, it might have been less than that from there to there. Yeah, and by 9.30 PM, did a little research. Because you kept drinking and don't remember it? That's right. It was a supercell, moved in the heart of downtown Atlanta. And this was during the SEC basketball tournament. And it blew the windows out on the Westin. Yeah, the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.

And they put plywood up over the windows and left it there for like a year and a half. It was longer than that, because I remember driving and saying, and I remember reading why it took so long, was because they were specialty windows when it was built back in the 70s or whatever. But I remember thinking, how hard could it be to construct new glass?

I totally forgot about that, man. It was like two years later. And for those of you who don't live in Atlanta and aren't familiar, this building is basically the icon of the Atlanta skyline. Yeah, sort of the center tall building. Yeah, very tall cylindrical building with a revolving restaurant on the top.

Oh, yeah. It's impossible to miss. And it was dotted with plywood for two years. It was crazy. Totally forgot about that. So the SEC basketball tournament was going on at the Georgia Dome, and there was an NBA game being played. And I think stuff like happened in the Georgia Dome,

they had to stop the game for a minute. Crazy. Yeah. 130 miles per hour in F2, not too bad. Not too shabby. That's respectable for a city tornado, right? Yeah, and thankfully, only one person lost their life in that one, which, if you think about it,

is pretty remarkable, considering how dense we packed Atlanta. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people in that area. So you've got Oklahoma City has been hit twice, terribly. Atlanta, Salt Lake City's seen plenty of tornadoes, same with Dallas, and Miami. Did not know about the Miami hurricane. I didn't either.

Although it makes sense because that's the name. No, not the hurricane, the tornado. Yeah. That's what I, my brain just got zapped. Well, what are you going to say about the hurricanes? Oh, the University of Miami? Yeah. Right.

But it wasn't a hurricane, it was a tornado. No. I can believe a hurricane in Miami. A tornado, that's the one I have trouble in. Isn't there named the University of Miami Severe Weather Systems? Right. I think we should definitely take a break.

OK. And we'll be back with more unbelievable facts right after this. MUSIC On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts

flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted

Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place,

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Chuck, I remember specifically believing that tornadoes were totally indigenous to North America. Right.

They only happened here. It seems like you only hear about them here. Yeah. You know? But apparently, they do happen elsewhere. The reason why most people think they only happen here is because in North America, we have something like, I should say, in the United States,

not even just North America, but in the United States, we get about 1,400 reported tornadoes a year. That's a lot of tornadoes. Yeah. By comparison, Europe sees about 300. And that's all of Europe. Yeah. And apparently, tornadoes do happen on every continent,

except Antarctica. But the reason that it seems like they happen here only is because they happen so much more frequently here than elsewhere. Yeah. Apparently, South America has favorable conditions for tornadoes. And then between Argentina and Brazil, especially,

they have the right kind of storms to produce tornadoes. But again, it doesn't happen as much as the United States. No. And so the other aspect of it, we go back to that same thing with the news covering trailer parks. It's a very small proportion of tornadoes are actually considered dangerous, something like 2% or violent, I think, is what they're called, right?

75% are weak, 22% are strong. Oh, so 3% are violent. 3% are violent. So if you have 300 tornadoes a year, right? Yeah. And only 3% are violent, that's not going to make news quite as often as if you have 1,400 tornadoes per year and 3% are violent.

It's going to seem like there's tornadoes that are just wrecking America all the time. Yeah. And then apparently also, the United States specifically, and parts of Canada, but the US is in a very unique position for tornado formation, right? Yeah. And we have that thing called tornado alley.

And tornado alley just so happens to fit very nicely over what's also known as the Great Plains. That's right. Specifically, we are talking, where is it here? Central Texas, head northward. Northward. The W is not silent. I like northward.

And to US is a huge, though. In northern Iowa, and from central Kansas and Nebraska, east to Western Ohio, which is where you're talking about. Yeah. And that is tornado alley that doesn't count Florida. Apparently, Florida is a little bit of its own tornado alley. Yeah. Apparently, in Miami, too.

Yeah. But like we said, Georgia, we'll have them here and there. Yeah. Yeah, because there's a tornado alley where they, OK. So if you look at the Great Plains, right, it's relatively flat. So it allows cool air to come down from Canada. Yeah.

And it hits warm air coming up from the Gulf. Yeah. And they meet, and they form this front, this wedge, that creates tornado alley itself. Because where those two things meet, that's where the type of storms that can produce tornadoes are formed. Right.

And so it forms basically a east-west or southwest northeast line. And that, essentially, is tornado alley. Yeah, and as far as weather conditions, we mentioned some of these other countries that do have those conditions. But the difference is, in a place like the Bay of Bengal, it's just a much narrower window of time

that these conditions exist. Whereas the United States, I mean, when it's tornado season, it's much wider. I mean, it's several months, isn't it? Oh, yeah, it's throughout the summer. Yeah. Yeah, starting in late spring, depending on where you are. And then I think in Florida, what they call Dixie Alley.

Dixie Alley? Is that what they call it? That's what it said. That doesn't even make sense. I don't associate Florida with Dixie, you know? Well, of course not. It's its own thing. It is very much its own thing.

Dixie Alley, yeah, they experience tornadoes more in the fall, late fall. Yeah. Because they're not in the heart of tornado alley. No, they're their own thing. They're their own thing. So then Chuck, I feel like we've really dispelled a lot of myths here.

Busted them, if you will. Probably saved some lives. Sure. We should say rather than just like, yeah, you're 10 to 20 times likelier to die in a mobile home and just leave it at that. If you do live in a mobile home community, after listening to this episode, I

want you to get on your laptop or your tablet or your PC or go to the mobile home community office and say, where is the nearest tornado shelter? Yeah. Because the thing that you should do if you live in a mobile home community is leave that mobile home community when a tornado warning has been issued.

Yes. Tornado watch. Yes. No warning. Yes. Warning means that it's been seen. Watch is the weather is likely to produce them. Yeah.

And I think they should just come up with better terms for that. Look out, it's a tornado. Yeah. Should replace warning. Yeah. Or just like, well, yeah, that's pretty good. I'll go with that. Thanks, man.

What about getting in your car? Because if the average tornado goes 30 miles an hour and the fastest ever tornado on record is only 73 miles an hour. Man, I'll bet that is crazy. You would think, man, just get in your car because I can go 80 in my pickup truck. Sure.

I can outrun the. Just go 74. I can outrun the fast. I'd go up to 80. I could outrun the fastest tornado ever in history easily. All right. I do that every day on the highway. Well, you could conceivably in your truck be OK.

But what about those people who have like AMC Gremlin? They probably can't go 80 in that thing. And they're toast. No, that is not the point, my friend. The point is you shouldn't try to outrun a tornado, even if you can drive faster than one. Because tornadoes, while sort of predictable

and that they usually follow a straight line, you never know what they're going to do. That's why you'll see one house spared while the other is destroyed. And they're very wide. So they'll veer off course. And before you know it, you are in the path of the tornado, not outrunning the tornado.

Yeah, they can veer. They can stop touching the ground and then make contact again right, like you said, right in front of you or right around you. And they will backtrack. There are certain conditions that tornado will double back over its path and then go forward again. And that just happens out of nowhere.

They're extremely unpredictable. So yeah, you don't know that you're driving in the right direction, even if initially you are. And then secondly, apparently, is it NOAA or the National Weather Service that says, I think in all caps, do not get in your car and try to outrun a tornado. It's a CDC for some weird reason.

That's not a disease. Is it like the Center for Disease Control and Injury Prevention now though? Cause maybe that would, the injury prevention would account for that. But they do say that the least desirable place to be during a tornado is in your vehicle. It should be the Centers for Disease Control

and Injury Prevention, but don't ask us about gun violence. In Oklahoma, the El Reno Tornado in 2013. Yeah, that was the one that hit Oklahoma City. Oh, was it? Yeah. This is a talk about unpredictability. This thing within 60 seconds went from being a mile wide

to 2.6 miles wide. That's insane. And it's the widest one ever recorded in tornado. United States, well, probably all tornado history. Man, nothing makes me think of humans as just like fleas on the face of the planet than tornadoes. This crazy weather that comes out of nowhere and just picks up everything we do and like work for

and strive for and just kicks it into nothingness. That's all natural disasters to me. It's just like a big reminder like, hey humans, when you're long gone. Brushed you off my shoulder. There were still be earthquakes and tsunamis. Yeah. It's a feature of the planet.

13% of people killed in tornadoes are in their vehicles at the time, which doesn't necessarily mean they're trying to outrun it. Right. But you know, 13%, it's no small beans. No, don't. And apparently in that, the one in Oklahoma, there were a couple of notable storm chasers

that even have like really great safe track records that were killed. Many people thought, you know, because these people were killed, it might be a real signal, like they can't outrun tornadoes, nor should you try. Yeah. As Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt ruined it for things.

Did you like that movie? Yeah, I liked it. Yeah. It was a cute movie. It kinda holds up actually. Does it really? The special effects remarkably hold up. That's very surprising.

Cause that was like mid nineties, right? Yeah. And there was another tornado movie that I did not see just a couple of years ago. Into the storm, I think. It looked really bad. Did it? Although it had the great Matt Walsh. What about?

Nice paycheck for you, Mr. Walsh. Did he star in it? No, but he, you know, he's the- Was he the like friend psychic? To meet at Relief, sure. Nice. But yeah, I'm sure he did just fine on that one. Did you see San Andreas?

I saw about 40% of it and the other 60% I fast forwarded through. Really? I fast forwarded through everything except for all the devastation. That's like the only part I cared about seeing. Sure. Oh, so it was 60% non devastation?

That ratio was off. Yeah, agreed. That's disappointing. Cause I kind of wanted to see it. It looked like it would be kind of interesting. It's Hollywood Dreck. Well, not that many disaster flicks aren't. Yeah, good point now.

Although Towering Inferno, that was a great movie. Yeah. Straight up great movie. Same with The Poseidon Adventure. Yeah, those. My God. The boat that, I was about to call it, the boat that flipped upside down.

But the original. Yeah. Definitely not the remake. Yeah, why did they even bother? No, actually, now I'm thinking about it. Disaster flicks were good movies in the 70s. Airport. Great.

Was it just airport? And then airport 77 was the sequel? I think so. I think they made like three or four after that, too. They don't make them like that anymore, my friend. Nope. Well, if you want to know more about tornadoes, we've got a mess of articles on how stuff works about them.

You can type the word tornado or add an E before you pluralize it. In the search bar at howstuffworks.com, and it will bring up great stuff. As I said, search bar, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this Josh's pick for Listener Mail. Because you picked it. Yes.

Because it's a Japan-centric. Well, favorite places, right? Yeah, I'll explain. All right. Hey, guys, I just listened to the show on nostalgia. And although I'm a big Hodgman fan, Japan is perhaps not the place for him. I find it fascinating that I'm living in Japan where

the feeling of nostalgia is one of the most treasured emotional experiences. The Japanese word for it is, you want to say it? I have to see it in writing. But I can pronounce it. Natsukashi. Natsukashi. And that was actually why I picked this.

Because I was telling Yumi that we did one on nostalgia. She's like, you talked about Natsukashi, right? I was like, I forgot. Well, here we are. Natsukashi, is it shii? It's so close that it almost sounds like an extended i. OK, because there's two i's. But you don't want it, right?

But you don't want to make it like e. Right, right, right. But it's like just a little extra something on that i. I love it. That place connotes the feeling of a pleasant sorrow and sometimes a beauty. An interesting example is cherry blossom season. The season just commenced here.

And I'm told that one of the reasons Japanese love the season so much is that it's so short-lived, lasting only about two weeks each year. The short-lived beauty cultivates the pleasant sadness feeling. Even when the trees are in full bloom, my friends indulge in pre-nostalgia, knowing that we'll all end soon in this add to their enjoyment and depth of the experience.

That's really lovely, isn't it? If this sounds a bit overboard, I should mention that cherry blossom viewing feels somewhat like a spectator sport here. And droves of people turn out for picnics under the trees with their high-end cameras ready to capture the perfect photo. I also found it interesting that one of the positive outcomes of nostalgia you mentioned is that it reminds us

that life is worth living in light of the extremely long work hours and brutal commutes on rush hour trains, no wonder Japanese really fostered nostalgia to remind them of life's simple joys. I think she's onto something here. By the way, I moved to Tokyo last September and discovered your podcast last fall. Living here involves lots of walking and train time.

Your podcasts are perfect entertainment as I'm moving about the city. That is from Rebecca Texan Living in Tokyo. Thanks a lot. That was a great email, Rebecca. I appreciate it. So you've experienced that feeling. Natsukashi, yeah, nostalgia.

Do you toast and say that out loud? No, you go comply when you toast. Natsukashi is you're just quietly shedding a tear speaking about something very lovely from when you were a child. I would just be one of those big dummies in Japan. Yeah, well, look at this. Yeah, he's toasting something that's sad. No, no, it's not like that.

I think it's, I'm not an expert on Natsukashi, but I think it's not quite nostalgia. It's just, it's very close to it. It's just something, there's just something more. It's more of like an investigation of nostalgia, more of a relishing it kind of thing. Interesting. Yeah, very cool.

I love Japan. I hope to go one day. You will love it. I mean, you'll just absolutely love it. Yeah, it's an amazing place. You've got to get Emily on board for that flight. It's a pain. And when you come back, depending on what direction

you're traveling, where you're flying from, you are nuts from jet lag for like two weeks. Oh yeah, it always seems like you're just you don't even know which way is up for a little while. For like two weeks, you're just like, when is this going to end? And then like the first five days, just go buy in this haze that you're not even aware of.

Crazy. Yeah. Japan, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at SPYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com, and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast,

and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.